A family member forwarded me an article about David Isaac Haws, a West Virginia University student.Â He was awarded a college scholarship.Â He completed one year of college with a 4.0 GPA with the plan of then serving a mission and returning to school.Â He requested a deferment of his scholarship during his mission.Â The scholarship board exercised its discretion and refused his request.Â I’m not sure if his constitutional rights were violated or not, but I’m also pleased that the ACLU is supporting his right to exercise his religion.Â I think most LDS would be shocked to see the organization suing on behalf of a Mormon.

I’m a bit shocked that the scholarship board would be so stubborn about this.Â I’m under the impression that most universities are very accommodating when it comes to missions.Â As the person that forwarded this to me said, “Even godless Cornell held my scholarship without even thinking about it.”

Anyone want to take a bet on whether West Virginia University would hold a scholarship for a football player?

“Anyone want to take a bet on whether West Virginia University would hold a scholarship for a football player?”

Actually, the answer is no. Missionaries become recruitable after serving a mission. Neither the school (any school) nor the athlete are bound to any scholarship commitment. BYU recently had a punter who lost his scholarship to the UW while serving a mission. BYU lost Ben Olsen when Ben chose to go to UCLA after his mission. The jab at football, while sometimes justified, is not in this case.

If the missionary knew that the scholarship would be lost if he went on his mission, then he should lay down in the bed he made. It is not a “right” to keep a scholarship when you are told it won’t be held for you if you take two years off.

I attended a state school in the Midwest on full scholarship. The state itself had a policy that a student could take a two year leave for public service and return with his/her scholarship intact. I don’t know what WV’s policy is but the ACLU may have become involved because the school was applying similar provisions inequitably (approving missions for Methodists while rejecting Mormon’s requests). What bothers me is that this young man has other options available to him without getting the courts involved. He could just complete his undergraduate education and then serve his mission.

This issue is quite personal to me, as we had to fight like he** to keep my wife’s schloarship when she took a semsester off when our first child was born. She had been shown nothing regarding this policy when accepting the scholarship and was a Dean’s List student. It seemed in our case the decision was that of one {insert explicative here} lady that seemed to have a personal problem with young families. We won out after the dean of her department and a couple other friends with clout got behind us, but it was clear that our University did not have to hold the scholarship. WVU, and my alma matter are within their rights, but I struggle why any University would want to push away a gifted student for starting a family or serving their god.

I understand that football players are released from scholarships to go on missions. It is very rare for them to not be offered a scholarship upon returning. In fact, this sort of thing is usually worked out during recruiting. My alma mater happens to encourage LDS athletes to go on their missions directly out of high school in order to have them play for four uninterrupted years. The Church accommodated this preference. I had a few friends that had gone on missions when they were barely 18.

The student in question is already back from his mission. And yes, he was told before he left on his mission that the scholarship would not be held for him.

We don’t know from the news article that I read what his current plans or alternative options are. However, I would say that what he’s doing is to blaze a trail, or clear the path, so to speak, for the next LDS student/missionary that goes to that school who wants to both go on a mission and accept an academic scholarship from the school.

Similar “trail blazing” or “clearing of obstacles” had to be done at other schools, including the federal military academies (West Point, Annapolis, etc.) After those schools learned that the student/missionary came back so much “improved” they gladly continued the scholarship deferrment for future LDS missionaries.

I see his goal not so much as selfish, but to improve the situation, which will allow more future RM’s to enjoy that school’s offerings, and improve the school by having more RM’s go there in the future.

As it is now, prior to this lawsuit, this school is effectively saying “Future LDS missionaries or RMs need not apply for scholarships, you’ll have to pay full tuition.”

The ACLU has traditionally gotten involved in scholastic situations where school rules are in conflict with established religious practices. Examples are cases in which school dress codes would prohibit the wearing of ear-locks by Hasidic Jews, or the wearing of turbans by Sikhs, or the hijab by Muslim women.

So I can see the parallel to LDS missionary service. 19 year-old Mormon males are expected to serve a 2 year mission, just as much as Hasidic males are expected to wear the long locks of hair in front of their ears, and as Muslim women are expected to wear a hijab, and as Sikh men are expected to wear a turban.

Athletic scholarships can be renewed by the university on an annual basis, it is up to the discretion of the university. Ben Olson’s case is not remotely similiar to this situation. BYU wanted Ben to return to BYU, they had a scholarship for him, he simply chose to go somewhere else. If you don’t think that athletic programs will bend over backwards to accommodate football or basketball players then you have your head in the sand.

Interesting question, and yet another reason why Mormons need to re-evaluate the ACLU as a favorite scapegoat and embodiment of all things liberal (and therefore evil).

If there’s no disparate treatment, i.e., if other religious or non-religious students taking a two-year break don’t get their scholarships back upon their return, then WVU is on pretty solid legal ground in cancelling this missionary’s scholarship – particularly if the missionary was on notice this may happen before he left on his mission.

I don’t see the same parallels between the LDS mission and the yarmulke or veil. As arJ pointed out, Church policy is pretty flexible with when men can go on their missions. There’s no reason (well, besides social pressure) that a young man can’t go on a mission after he graduates from college and finishes his mission before he turns 26.

“Similar ‘trail blazing’ or ‘clearing of obstacles’ had to be done at other schools, including the federal military academies (West Point, Annapolis, etc.) After those schools learned that the student/missionary came back so much ‘improved’ they gladly continued the scholarship deferrment for future LDS missionaries.”

The academies do not have scholarships; they simply pay the expenses of all cadets or midshipmen. And I thought the policy was still that the prospective missionary had to resign then apply for reinstatement, which was not guaranteed. But maybe it’s changed….

6. “In fact, this sort of thing is usually worked out during recruiting.”

That’s right. Everyone knows the deal going into it. It apprears that our RM in WVa knew the deal doing into it as well.

8. I only used the example of Ben Olsen to show that athletic scholarships are not held binding for RMs. Before that, I mentioned Derek McLaughlin, though I couldn’t recall his name. Derek lost his scholarship to UW while on his mission. It’s not common, but it does happen.

The ACLU also defended Oliver North. When I heard an ACLU lawyer confronted on television with the notion that North got off on a technicality, he responded by saying, “The Bill of Rights is not the Bill of Technicalities.” An apt response.

They may have some very irrational ideas about religion, but at least they’re consistent.

Does a school need a good reason to take away a scholarship? BYU took my brother’s away when he took a semester off to spend time with his son that was dying of cancer. I thought these things were totally up to the school, or are some like a contract?

#13, these things are different when its a state school. BYU can take away your scholarship just because you didn’t take a bath that day. If the scholarship is a state program and WVU is a state school, they have to be more careful in these decisions.

I think the ACLU has been involved in cases with the Church before. I think a couple of years ago there was a school prayer case down in San Antonio that made it up to the Supreme Court and the ACLU was representing the Mormon student who was offended by the Christian prayer practices at the public school. I think that is one of the really great things about the ACLU. They are equal opportunity representatives. Some people will call their willingness to represent both sides of the issue unprincipled. But I think they are probably truer to the intention of the 1st Amendment in this way.

It’s nice to see Mormons say nice things about the ACLU, an organization that doesn’t really give a damn about your religion, but will fight tooth and nail to ensure you get to practice it according to how they interpret the First Amendment. They may not always be right, but what a great tool they are.

do allow an automatic two-year deferment for missions and a year for childbirth.

So if a student were offered some money through that program (which are often combined with state dollars, but if the university uses the competition as a basis for selection then they abide by NM policies), versus totally university dollars which are at the whim of administrators, then choosing the former might be better in the long run.

The paperwork also said no leaves, but when I called the offices and told them that my son was planning on taking two years off, their first words were, “Is this for a mission?”

I think the problem is preliminary to that. In my experience and observation, in many fields (most, perhaps) much of the process of making connections, in school and outside, and putting yourself in a position to get a post-college job is done during your last 12-18 months. A missionary who graduates then disappears for two years misses that. That may make the job search much tougher.

Interesting comments. A friend I went to high school with back in the early 80s received a 2 yr full ride academic scholarship to BYU. He was to turn 19 during his first year of college. He was told the scholarship would not be held for him or deferred if he went on a mission. So he opted to take the scholarship and go to school for two years, and then go on a mission.

#14, That was the Santa Fe Football Prayer case. Cornell has the the text of the decision. It’s fun to remind people that a LDS family was one of the plaintiffs in the case. Who do they think is going to run the school prayers in Texas? Yeesh.

In the subject at hand, I agree that this could be a trailblazing suit – the young man may not get his scholarship back, but at least it will be clear for people coming after. Also, if the university is inconsistent about who gets time off, that could rule in his favor.

He may have gone anyway because he wouldn’t have standing to sue until he had been deprived of his scholarship. Are there any lawyers in the bloggernacle?